Category: Uncategorized

E-Library Economics

Another link to an article from a professor in my MLIS program from Inside HigherEd.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/02/10/libraries

It expands on the Kindle article posted earlier and discusses the economics of print and digital library collections along with the challenges faced in making the conversion to digital.

Superheroes in the stacks?

I was just reading the reviews for a new book that might make a good choice for the next book club selection:

This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
by Marilyn Johnson

And just a reminder: We will be discussing our first book selection – “Everything is Miscellaneous” – at the next FLIP meeting on February 19.

Guilty by disassociation

I’m currently enrolled in a Reader’s Advisory class, and thought it would be fun to repeat one of our discussion exercises here. Our professor set up a thread where we can come clean and voluntarily admit to the books that we feel guilty for never reading.

You would be surprised how many people have never read Orwell’s “1984”, the number of English Lit majors that struggle with Jane Austen, and all the children’s librarians out there who have somehow steered clear of anything “Harry Potter”. I sheepishly posted that I have never managed to get through anything by Dickens, which started an avalanche of agreement .  Glad to know I’m not the only one!

What about you: what haven’t you read that makes you feel just a little bit guilty? Chances are that someone else will sympathize with you completely. Post in comments and free yourself now!

Mentor/Mentee 101: Developing a Career Essential Relationship

ALA’s New Member Roundtable (NMRT) posts monthly discussion topics on their listserv. This month’s topic is on mentorships. Here is the link to join the listserv–I don’t think you need to be an ALA member to join the NMRT listserv:

http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/rts/nmrt/news/nmrtmailinglists.cfm

Here’s this month’s discussion topic–I thought there were some good questions:


My name is Tricia Dean; Esther Giezendanner and I I will be co-leading this month’s discussion with . Our topic this month is Mentor/Mentee 101: Developing a Career Essential Relationship. For individuals new to the profession, having a mentor can be a huge benefit. On the flip side, mentoring can be a great opportunity to share skills and expertise and connect with a newer colleague who may bring in a fresh perspective. How do we develop solid mentoring relationships that strengthen the individual participants and the profession as a whole?

Here are a few questions to get us started:
-What are some reasonable expectations for mentors and mentees?
-Are there any pitfalls that should be avoided when starting a new mentoring relationship?
-What are the benefits you’ve gained from having a mentor, or what benefits would you hope to gain from having a mentoring relationship?
-Various subdivisions of ALA and some libraries offer formal mentoring programs. What are the advantages and drawbacks of going this route?
If you’ve been in one of these programs what are the pluses and what do you think might have been better in an informal relationship?
-If none of the formal mentoring programs fit an individual’s needs, how might he/she find a mentor informally?

Looking forward to a great discussion with you,
Esther & Tricia

Upcoming events

There won’t be a December FLIP meeting, but (as mentioned in a previous post) we are planning a movie night here in the Consortium Library.  Mark your calendar for Friday, December 18 (probably starting around 7:30 p.m.).  No final decision has been made on the flick, so if you’ve got a favorite, please add your suggestion(s) in a comment!

Also, we are starting a book club! The first selection is Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger. We plan to meet sometime around the end of January or beginning of February to discuss, so start reading (or add it to your Christmas list) now. More details coming soon…

Neither of these events are limited to only those that attend FLIP meetings.  If you are interested in hanging out, chit-chat, and/or library fun, please come!

Book club? Movie night?

At the last FLIP meeting, we talked about all kinds of things, as we are wont to do, but perhaps the two most fun were the ideas of a FLIP Book Club (not a flip-book club) and a Library Movie Night. The book club could be anything, really, and if we wanted to move away from library-themed books, we could actually extend it out to patrons. Maybe we could do something for The Whale and the Supercomputer. But it could also be a professional development kind of thing, internally. (Coral’s suggestion: Everything is Miscellaneous.)

The Movie Night could be some kind of library-themed movie–I hear this has been done before?–in 307, in the evening, with people throwing in for pizza or something. It would be pretty informal, and “library-themed” can mean anything from “Party Girl” to “Desk Set” to a documentary about libraries. Ideas are welcome!

Do either of these thoughts interest you, though? If so, comment!